Cary Agajanian was named an executive vice president and member of the board of directors of USAC. In that role he becomes the chief executive in the sanctioning of technical rules, competition and enforcement for the new league which opens in 1996. A Los Angeles attorney, Cary is the son of the late J.C. Agajanian who was renowned as a successful and colorful car owner for four decades at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Agajanian, 53, brings an extensive background of experience in the sport, including as car owner, sanctioning body director, event promoter, track owner/operator, driver representative, legal counsel and rules committee member.
In making the announcement, USAC president Dick King said, "Cary has been a tremendous friend of auto racing whose expertise now becomes a critical component in the successful launch of the IRL." Agajanian will be joined by long-time USAC official Keith Ward in building an IRL support team. Ward replaces retiring Tom Binford as chief steward for the Indianapolis 500 and will serve in the same role for the other four IRL first-year races in 1996. Binford is commissioner of the new league in a consulting capacity.
"I have been given the opportunity to form a new division with a group of aggressive people in motorsports dedicated to Indianapolis car racing," Agajanian said. "It's a time for growth and expansion of open wheel racing. This allows us to build a whole new structure for the future and, at the same time, tie back to our roots."
Jack Long, executive director of the IRL, hailed USAC's decision. He said, "USAC has a long history with the Indianapolis 500. Now, with the expanded responsibility of an entire series built around the world's greatest race, it is enlarging that commitment under the direction of one of racing's most highly respected executives. We couldn't be more pleased."
Agajanian elaborated on his view of the future for Indy racing. "The market is absolutely open for more races, especially more on oval tracks," Agajanian commented. "I look at the IRL as a healthy expansion that can only heighten the competition. There is certainly room for more than 15 races at this high level. There are many fans in the country who do not have access to Indy racing. These are huge markets that simply have not been tapped."
A new era of American motorsports is soon to be unveiled. And its springboard is the world's No. 1 sports spectacle - the Indianapolis 500.
It's the Indy Racing League, which will be launched on Saturday, January 27, 1996, at the site of another American landmark - Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.
The IRL is the creation of Anton H. (Tony) George, president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and grandson of Tony Hulman, the man credited with saving and revitalizing the famed auto racing facility after World War II.
What is the IRL?
In its first year it will be a series of five oval races, including the 80th running of the Indianapolis 500, for open-wheel, open cockpit cars of the type that have evolved in America from the time of Ray Harroun, who won the first Indianapolis 500 with the Marmon Wasp in 1911 at speeds of roughly 80mph, to those today which exceed 230mph around the same 2.5 mile distance.
The inaugural race is a $1 million, 200-miler on an all-new 1-mile paved tri-oval now under construction within the properties of Walt Disney World and adjacent to the famed Magic Kingdom (photo on page 1).
Race No. 2 will be the Phoenix 200, March 24, 1996, at Phoenix International Raceway, the world's fastest one-mile oval, which has been the scene of Indianapolis car racing since A.J. Foyt's victory there in 1964.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway will provide the cornerstone event for the first IRL season on May 26, 1996, with the Indianapolis 500.
Two more 200 mile races will complete the first year's schedule for the IRL:
The New England 200 on Aug. 18, 1996, at New Hampshire International Speedway, a one-mile oval at Loudon, N.H., which has featured PPG Indy Car events since 1992.
The first Las Vegas 200 on Sept. 15, 1996, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, an ultra-modern facility now under construction that includes a 1.5-mile tri-oval.
The Indy Racing League will preserve and perpetuate the historical oval-track racing tradition of the Indianapolis 500 by restoring the focus on the heritage upon which the event was built, according to Jack Long, executive director of the IRL.
Long, who has an extensive background in developing and managing both Indy car and Formula 1 events, said the motivation for creating the IRL also was to provide a platform for long-term growth and stability in the sport of Indianapolis car racing.
"The Indianapolis 500 has a history of innovation in American motorsports," Long said. "The IRL for the first time provides a true league framework around the 500 to open opportunities for new teams and drivers to compete."
One extension of that history is the IRL's partnership with ABC Sports which will provide live television coverage of all of its events. ABC has telecast the Indy 500 for 30 years.
Among the incentives for competition in the IRL, according to Long, are:
"The IRL as a unified series expects to offer more than $12 million in purse monies for its five races," Long said. "We see that and other unique guarantees as important incentives to compete."
Long said entry applications for the opening race, the Indy 200 at Walt Disney World, will be distributed in the fall of this year. Testing on the new track at Orlando, which is expected to be completed in late September, will begin in November.
He reiterated that IRL rules for its first season will be the same as those applied for the 1995 Indianapolis 500.
(Jack Long was named executive director and chief administrator of the Indy Racing League in January, 1995. His background includes more than 20 years in marketing and event management in Indianapolis car and Formula One racing.)
This first issue of the Indy Racing League Newsletter provides me this opportunity to lay out the philosophy of the IRL -- briefly, of course. And it offers the avenue for telling the IRL story, politics and prejudices aside.
Basically, the IRL was founded to improve the sport of American open wheel, open cockpit car racing, not to damage it. Stability and long term growth are the objectives.
More specifically, the reason for the IRL is to establish an environment that will (1) return oval-track racing at this level to its heritage and (2) lower the cost of entry for teams and drivers of the future.
Indianapolis car racing is going through an important transition at this time. Many of its famous names and stars have left the sport in recent years. This has happened before. And through these transitions the sport has always continued to thrive and flourish. New stars are born, as is the case now.
However, what also is occurring are two other trends:
1. An imbalance -- a preponderance of road and street circuit events over oval races, a ratio nearly 2-to-1.
2. A lack of cost control -- making Indy car racing a sport leaning toward exclusivity.
On point No. 1, understandably the champion will come from a background of road racing. That makes sense -- car owners are pursuing championships and turn to drivers with road racing experience to get there. Indianapolis car racing, on the other hand, was created near the turn of the century as oval track competition. That's the heritage and that's what the Indianapolis 500 is all about. The concern here is that the door is shutting for American oval track aspirants and with it, that goal of getting to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The IRL was not conceived to eliminate foreign drivers or road racers from Indianapolis. Skilled drivers can compete on any kind of track -- names like Hill, Clark, Foyt, Stewart, Andretti, Unser, Jones, Fittipaldi, Gurney come to mind. An IRL reason to exist is to create opportunity for new and even established teams to get that chance.
On point No. 2, in Indy car racing today, engine package costs have reached a disproportionate level compared to the rest of technology. Car design has never been better -- fast, sleek, safe -- and with costs that are high but certainly what teams can live with.
This is not to propose that Indy racing should be "cheapened". Major League sports are expensive, not cheap. While technology demands investment, Indy racing costs today are approaching Formula One budgets. The IRL seeks more fiscal responsibility.
To that end, IRL is reaching to American and foreign manufacturers of passenger automobiles -- and to their leading edge technology -- to provide, in the near future, production based racing engines, adapted from what will be familiar on our highways in the coming century.
Indianapolis has always been a tool for manufacturers in the high tech development of their products. Hence, an IRL objective is to reestablish the relationship of the Indy series and car companies and again become partners in the developing that technology.
We think these are honorable and realistic objectives -- the return of Indy racing to ovals and the return of car companies along with lower costs and greater opportunities to teams and drivers.